No good news for Garth Brooks fans stung by ticket scam

Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald07.13.2012

A happy Garth Brooks fan Abbey Maillot, 8, holds up two Garth Brooks tickets, given to her by Virgin Mobile after a representative found out that she and her mom, Nadine, had been victimized by someone selling fake tickets.Dean Bicknell
/ Calgary Herald

Garth Brooks in concert at the Saddledome at the Calgary Stampede on Thursday.Dean Bicknell
/ Calgary Herald

Garth Brooks fans front Vanna Smith, with Matthew Casement, holds up fraudulent tickets outside the Saddledome before the start of the Garth Brooks concert Thursday night. They bought the tickets online but were turned away at the door.Dean Bicknell
/ Calgary Herald

Country music star Garth Brooks chats with the media during a press conference at the Scotiabank Saddledome.Gavin Young
/ Calgary Herald

A day after the king of country left town, there was no good news for fans who bought fake tickets to see Garth Brooks on Thursday, only to be refused entry.

That was the consensus Friday, whether it was the Stampede, Ticketmaster or the Calgary police, all of whom delivered essentially the same message to concertgoers who buy tickets off scalpers: buyer beware.

“Talk to Ticketmaster,” said Stampede spokesman Doug Fraser. “It really is their issue, not ours. We’re as much the victim as anybody else in this. We’d love to find a way to stop it (ticket fraud), but it really is up to them to address the matter.”

Reached in Los Angeles, Ticketmaster’s director of public relations Jacqueline Peterson said she understood fans’ frustration.

“Sadly, scalpers are out there and they take advantage of fans,” said Ticketmaster’s Jacqueline Peterson. “It’s disgusting.”

Peterson was fielding phone calls from Canada informing her of the fury that broke out Thursday night when dozens of Garth Brooks fans, many of whom paid hundreds of dollars to buy tickets off websites such as Kijiji, arrived at the Stampede grounds to discover their tickets weren’t valid.

While Peterson expressed compassion for fans who got ripped off, she explained that there’s no way for Ticketmaster to control what happens when fans venture onto secondary websites to buy tickets.

“On Ticketmaster and TicketsNow, we offer a place that tickets are real and authentic,” she said. “If fans go there, they know they’re going to get real tickets.

“A lot of secondary sites offer a fan guarantee,” she added, “that they will get their money back if the tickets aren’t genuine, but they won’t necessarily get into the venue.

“(Getting your) money back is nice and appropriate,” she said, “but at that moment, you really want to get into the venue to see the show.”

Meanwhile, Staff Sgt. Rob van Gastel of the Calgary Police was still sifting through a pile of criminal reports filed by fans who bought counterfeit Brooks tickets.

“More than two dozen complaints so far,” said van Gastel. “Almost every one had at least two tickets. Some had four or five.

“We’re pulling video from various places,” he added, “and some victims actually furnished us with photos of the people who sold them fake tickets.”

Van Gastel said that from all indications, more than one counterfeiter was at work Thursday.

“There were a number of scams,” he said. “(Some were) outright tickets that were hard copies, and then other electronic tickets that were easier to fake. They (electronic tickets) often didn’t have the purchasers name, which is standard for anyone who purchases tickets that way.

“There’s nothing to indicate it was one group of offenders,” he continued. “There were two or three different offence types or categories.”

Van Gastel said the Brooks show produced an unusually large number of counterfeit tickets.

I haven’t ever seen this (much of it),” he said. “I talked to folks in ticketing — this rates up in the top five. ”

Brooks’ PR representative replied to a request for comment that everyone was flying at the moment and unable to comment.

And while there were plenty of horror stories from fans who got burned, there were some success stories.

For Kristel Wulchuk, paying a premium was worth it. She remembers when Brooks was last in Calgary, 16 years ago, and she didn’t get to go. This time around, she and all her friends went the Ticketmaster route, but had zero luck.

“It’s always been a big regret of mine (not seeing Brooks last time) and I had the money, so I said, ‘I’m going to do it,’ ” Wulchuk said of her decision to drop north of $500 for her ticket.

The 29-year-old office manager purchased her ticket through Kijiji and it was valid.

“I hardly drink, I don’t smoke. This is my vice,” she said of spending that much for the seat, four rows up in section 108 directly beside the stage.

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